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It could be you – if you’re a lottery quango

One-sixth of all the national lottery money earmarked for good causes is being spent on bureaucracy, including one quango that has more staff than the Treasury.

New figures reveal that more than £200m a year is being swallowed up in administration and staffing costs at lottery distributors - up to six times the proportion spent on overheads by some leading charities.

It means that instead of the stipulated 28p of each £1 lottery ticket going to good causes, the true figure is closer to 23p.

The worst offending quango, the Big Lottery Fund (BLF), employs about 25 staff more than the Treasury to administer a budget about one-thousandth the size.

The report, produced by the Conservative party and based on official accounts and parliamentary answers, shows that lottery agencies spent more than £470,000 on consultancy fees last year and almost £50,000 on internal surveys to find out if their staff were